Free - Beyond Collapse

Monday, April 1, 2013

THE TRUE PRICE OF FREE CORN

(a parable about the wild and free hogs of the Okefenokee swamp)

Some years ago, about 1900, an old trapper from North Dakota hitched up some
horses to his Studebaker wagon, packed a few possessions— especially his traps—and
drove south. Several weeks later he stopped in a small town just north of the
Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.

It was a Saturday morning—a lazy day—when he walked into the general
store. Sitting around the pot-bellied stove were seven or eight of the town’s
local citizens.
The traveler spoke. "Gentlemen, could you direct me to the Okefenokee
Swamp?"
Some of the oldtimers looked at him like he was crazy. "You must be a
stranger in these parts," they said.

"I am. I’m from North Dakota," said the stranger. "In the
Okefenokee Swamp are thousands of wild hogs." one old man explained.
"A man who goes into the swamp by himself asks to die!" He lifted up
his leg. "I lost half my leg here, to the pigs of the swamp."

Another old fellow said, "Look at the cuts on me; look at my arm bit
off!
Those pigs have been free since the Revolution, eating snakes and rooting out
roots and fending for themselves for over a hundred years. They’re wild and
they’re dangerous. You can’t trap them. No man dare go into the swamp by
himself." Every man nodded his head in agreement.

The old trapper said, "Thank you so much for the warning. Now could you
direct me to the swamp?" They said, "Well, yeah, it’s due south—
straight down the road." But they begged the stranger not to go, because
they knew he’d meet a terrible fate.

He said, "Sell me ten sacks of corn, and help me load it in the
wagon." And they did. Then the old trapper bid them farewell and drove on
down the road. The townsfolk thought they’d never see him again. Two weeks
later the man came back. He pulled up to the general store, got down off the
wagon, walked in and bought ten more sacks of corn. After loading it up he went
back down the road toward the swamp.

Two weeks later he returned and again bought ten sacks of corn. This went on
for a month. And then two months, and three. Every week or two the old trapper
would come into town on a Saturday morning, load up ten sacks of corn, and drive
off south into the swamp.

The stranger soon became a legend in the little village and the subject of
much speculation. People wondered what kind of devil had possessed this man,
that he could go into the Okefenokee by himself and not be consumed by the wild
and free hogs.
One morning the man came into town as usual. Everyone thought he wanted more
corn. He got off the wagon and went into the store where the usual group of men
were gathered around the stove. He took off his gloves.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I need to hire about ten or fifteen
wagons. I need twenty or thirty men. I have six thousand hogs out in the swamp,
penned up, and they’re all hungry. I’ve got to get them to market right
away."

"You’ve WHAT in the swamp?" asked the storekeeper, incredulously.
"I have six thousand hogs penned up. They haven’t eaten for two or three
days, and they’ll starve if I don’t get back there to feed and take care of
them."

One of the oldtimers said, "You mean you’ve captured the wild hogs of
the Okefenokee?"
"That’s right."

"How did you do that? What did you do?" the men urged,
breathlessly.
One of them exclaimed, "But I lost my arm!"

"I lost my brother!" cried another.

"I lost my leg to those wild boars!" chimed a third.

The trapper said, "Well, the first week I went in there they were wild
all right. They hid in the undergrowth and wouldn’t come out. I dared not get
off the wagon. So I spread corn along behind the wagon. Every day I’d spread a
sack of corn. The old pigs would have nothing to do with it."

"But the younger pigs decided that it was easier to eat free corn than
it was to root out roots and catch snakes. So the very young began to eat the
corn first. I did this every day. Pretty soon, even the old pigs decided that it
was easier to eat free corn. After all, they were all free; they were not penned
up. They could run off in any direction they wanted at any time."

"The next thing was to get them used to eating in the same place all the
time. So I selected a clearing, and I started putting the corn in the clearing.
At first they wouldn’t come to the clearing. It was too far. It was too open.
It was a nuisance to them."
"But the very young decided that it was easier to take the corn in the
clearing than it was to root out roots and catch their own snakes. And not long
thereafter, the older pigs also decided that it was easier to come to the
clearing every day."

"And so the pigs learned to come to the clearing every day to get their
free corn. They could still subsidize their diet with roots and snakes and
whatever else they wanted. After all, they were all free. They could run in any
direction at any time. There were no bounds upon them."

"The next step was to get them used to fence posts. So I put fence posts
all the way around the clearing. I put them in the underbrush so that they
wouldn’t get suspicious or upset. After all, they were just sticks sticking up
out of the ground, like the trees and the brush. The corn was there every day.
It was easy to walk in between the posts, get the corn, and walk back out."

"This went on for a week or two. Shortly they became very used to
walking into the clearing, getting the free corn, and walking back out through
the fence posts."
"The next step was to put one rail down at the bottom. I also left a few
openings, so that the older, fatter pigs could walk through the openings and the
younger pigs could easily jump over just one rail. After all, it was no real
threat to their freedom or independence. They could always jump over the rail
and flee in any direction at any time."

"Now I decided that I wouldn’t feed them every day. I began to feed
them every other day. On the days I didn’t feed them the pigs still gathered
in the clearing. They squealed, and they grunted, and they begged and pleaded
with me to feed them. But I only fed them every other day. And I put a second
rail around the posts."

"Now the pigs became more and more desperate for food. Because now they
were no longer used to going out and digging their own roots and finding their
own food. They now needed me. They needed my corn every other day.

So I trained them that I would feed them every day if they came in through a
gate. And I put up a third rail around the fence. But it was still no great
threat to their freedom, because there were several gates and they could run in
and out at will."

"Finally I put up the fourth rail. Then I closed all the gates but one,
and I fed them very, very well. Yesterday I closed the last gate. And today I
need you to help me take these pigs to market."

end of story—

The allegory of the wild pigs has a serious moral lesson. This story is about
Washington politicians using tax money to bait, trap, and enslave a once free
and independent people.

The welfare state, from "free" school lunches to old age
"pensions" (SS), has reduced more than individuals to a state of
dependency. State and local governments are also on the fast track to
elimination, due to their functions being subverted by the command and control
structures of federal "revenue sharing" programs. Please copy this
story and send it to all your state and local elected leaders (and other
concerned citizens). Tell them: "Just say NO to "free" federal
corn---we can’t afford it."